Justifying Violence: Attitudes of American Men, 1969 (ICPSR 3504)

This study contains data on the attitudes of 1,374 American
men aged 16-64 toward violence in 1969. The study was undertaken
to examine the levels of violence that can be viewed as justified
to bring about social control or social change. Also emphasized
were the role of the respondents' personal values, their definitions
of violence, and their identification with the groups involved in
violence. Some of the open-ended questions in the structured interview
probed the responden... (more info)

This study contains data on the attitudes of 1,374 American
men aged 16-64 toward violence in 1969. The study was undertaken
to examine the levels of violence that can be viewed as justified
to bring about social control or social change. Also emphasized
were the role of the respondents' personal values, their definitions
of violence, and their identification with the groups involved in
violence. Some of the open-ended questions in the structured interview
probed the respondents' general concerns, their attitudes toward
violence, and their views on the causes of and ways of preventing
violence. In questions grouped into categories of "violence for social
control" and "violence for social change", respondents were asked to
react to situations involving protests and other disturbances such as
hoodlum gang disturbances, students' protests, and Black protest
demonstrations. Repondents' opinions were sought on the appropriate
police actions in these situations and the frequency with which
certain control measures should be utilized. Respondents were also
asked in three different situations whether they believed change
could be effected without action involving property damage or injury,
or if change could only be effected with protests in which some people
were killed. Demographic variables describe age, sex, date of birth,
nationality, occupation, education, religion, and family income. A
supplementary sample of Black men is also included in this study in
order to permit separate analysis on the basis of race.

Access Notes

These data are freely available.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

Blumenthal, Monica D., Robert L. Kahn, and Frank M. Andrews. JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE: ATTITUDES OF AMERICAN MEN, 1969. Conducted by University of Michigan, Survey Research Center. 2nd ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1978. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03504.v2

The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using
PDF reader software, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy
of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Sample:
A total of 1,374 men aged 16-64, including a supplementary
sample of Black men, living in dwelling units in the coterminous United
States in 1969.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Performed consistency checks.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1984-05-03

Version History:

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.